


Transfiguration

by sechar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, HP: EWE, Not Epilogue Compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-04 23:01:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6678943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sechar/pseuds/sechar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione was so very, very tired of it all. And it was starting to become apparent that neither her work nor her personal life were going to give her a break.</p><p>Something drastic was clearly needed.</p><p>Fortunately, she has always been good at planning and executing plans, even if they didn't always go precisely as she would've liked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transfiguration

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, there will be swearing in this, but other than that, I have no plan: you have been warned.  
> I don't know how long this will be, or if it might even become a crossover. If there are any suggestions - am I making her too Mary-Sueish, does it seem completely unrealistic given the time it's set - I'd love to hear your thoughts so that I can change it to improve it :)

Hermione Granger was more than just fed up, overwhelmed, underpaid, and tired. Certainly, she _was_ all of that - but she was  _done with it._ She had worked for years in this damned Department, and there had not been nearly enough done to satisfy her. Oh, certainly, there had been some changes made - equal hiring practices became mandatory (and were, generally speaking, enforced), more comprehensive information was provided to muggleborns (in the form of a movie, which was absolutely hilarious both from how effective it was and how the purebloods snobbishly dismissed it just for that), and there had been a general decrease in the amount of attacks that occurred per month (she was pretty sure that was more to do with the  _very_ well publicised knowledge that the Chosen One and his General were working for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement than anything).

But her hours were long, the pay was shite, and her personal life seemed to be everyone's business but her own.  _"Oh, Hermione, you must come to this party I'm throwing! It's just a small one, and your boyfriend can come, yes?" "I'm sorry, Parvati, but I'm scheduled to work then, and won't be able to-" "Nonsense! You work far too much as it is - surely your boss wouldn't mind letting you have a break. After all, all work and no play makes-" "I really am sorry, Parvati, but my other co-workers have already booked to have that weekend off, leaving me to cover them. I do hope it goes well, but-"_

It was starting to break her. Hermione Granger gave a small snort as she laboured over her desk, inwardly amused that it wasn't a war that had caused her to break ( _she'd cracked then, but she'd shored up any gaps with determination and drive_ ) but the dull, rinse-and-repeat nine-to-five days that seemed to be slowly sucking out her soul.

It would not do. She would not let it happen. She'd survived a war as a teenager; she would not be broken in her mid-twenties by normal-person life. And so, as her hand busily filled out yet another form as she absently sipped her coffee, Hermione Granger plotted her escape.

She wasn't as naive as she'd been when she'd joined up. She knew that change would take decades of people working together, consciously and purposefully choosing to change opinions and working to integrate so that there would be more understanding and opportunity and equality for all. But that wasn't happening. Certainly, she wasn't the only one working towards it (though it sure felt like it at times), but they were only a handful of people. It was selfish and heartless, but the majority of the Wizarding World simply didn't care unless it directly affected them. She could knock on all the doors she wanted, and they would smile politely, listen to her spiel, and then close the door still smiling politely. She'd become relegated to being that humorous anecdote told at dinner parties. She wasn't seen as a crusader - she was seen as an upstart little girl who didn't understand their ways and wanted to impose her own standards on them; plus she was annoying, and have you heard the tales that could be told about her from Hogwarts? She was a  _wild_ girl, and you certainly couldn't trust a female like that, could you?

It was sexist, but the Wizarding World was like that. To be fair, the muggle world was like that too, though they were further ahead than their magical counterpart. Didn't mean she  _liked_ it or accepted it. Hell, she  _refused_ to do so. She had been going against expectations since she was a child, and by now it was practically ingrained in her to do what she thought was right, screw the consequences.

So she was getting out of here while she still could. It was 2007, and she was not going to settle for this any longer.

* * *

Being a war heroine - even if you were seen by more polite people as 'eccentric' and 'passionate' (the majority thought she was a rude little upstart who needed a man to be able to control her) - meant that things went a little easier for her than for most. She'd miss that, to a degree; but it had always rubbed her wrong when she was given preferential treatment for something that had happened a decade ago. She'd done more since then, and she did not want her accomplishments to be swept off to the side in favour of something that had happened literal years ago.

So cronyism and influence still paved the way. (Bring on the muggle world, where she was a nobody and just like everyone else.) And it made her want to slap herself out of principle alone, but she did need to use it - working within the system, rather than her more typical attempt to tear it down - in order to get the hell out of here.

(And now that she'd started looking outwards, she could see all the shit that was still here, that she'd thought had been gone. Houses with wards designed to keep out those deemed 'inferior' by the owners (" _Riffraff, you know, always looking for handouts and so needy it makes you want to-" )_ , muggleborns regarded with poorly-hidden scorn when they dressed like muggles, certain establishments that always watched her like she was scum whenever she walked past. It cemented her decision to leave. She was done trying to tell people who refused to listen what was wrong. There were a few times that she wondered if maybe  _she_ was the one who was wrong, given how many people seemed to think it were so; but when she looked at the muggle world, she found it was so much better, and knew that the Wizarding World could be so. And the few people she'd asked about why they wouldn't do x/y/z all hemmed and hawed and it seemed to boil down to the same thing: our way is the right way, and we don't want those {derogatory adjective} muggles coming in here and making it all wrong. And, yeah, she'd contemplated the possibility that maybe you had to be a pureblood to be told the whole story - but that was stupid and ridiculous and she didn't want to be part of a society that kept vital knowledge for the elite minority and then scorned her for not knowing it. Fuck that; she might not always know best, but she always wanted to  _know_.)

Talking to Hannah Abbott was . . . both refreshing and tiring. She was so very understanding of why she had to make a change - "You've always worked so hard; it's about time you took a break!" - but she seemed determined to reminisce about the DA for as long as possible. Hermione indulged her whilst filling out the paperwork and sneaking the occasional question into Hannah's ramblings.

"So, do you see many people from the DA then?" Hermione asked innocently, ostensibly focusing on filling out page 5 of 'Resignation of Employment with the Ministry of Magic; employment duration between 7 and 21 years'. She very carefully didn't react to the little box requiring her to state her blood status. (She was sure, if she asked about it, that it would have been added during the Second Blood War and they just hadn't gotten round to dealing with this one form out of the so very many of them all. Uh-huh.)

"Oh, not nearly as much as I'd like!" Hannah had laughed lightly, something about the cheery sound ringing false. "I mean, they're all so busy with their jobs and families that there isn't a lot of time to catch up with silly old Hannah Abbott, you know?"

Hermione paused then. She recognised that lilt in her tone now: bitterness and resignation.  _Hannah's a halfblood,_ she suddenly remembered. ". . . Hannah," She began, feeling almost as though she was about to jump off a diving board. "Would you like my phone number?"

Hannah's eyes widened. Clearly, she hadn't thought that this would happen. "Hermione, are you sure? I mean, with everything that's happening-" she gestured helplessly at the reams of papers spread out before them "I wouldn't want to-"

"Hannah," Hermione interrupted her, firmly but gently. "I haven't talked to you in far too long, and I'm planning on going to the muggle world-"  _Permanently_ "- for a while, and I'd like to keep in touch with you. So, Miss Abbott, would you like my phone number?" She finished with a teasing grin, half-laughing at herself for thinking she'd really be able to leave without a single tie.

And Hannah Abbott, a girl-turned-woman who had survived a war and then been relegated to a desk for her gender and her blood and perhaps even her House, nodded silently.

* * *

It was a dumb thing to do, Hermione knew, but she had felt a kinship with Hannah that afternoon. She'd seen what she was going through, and it had been eerily similar to what Hermione had been through. Likely the only reason that something identical hadn't happened to her was down to a few things: she was a muggleborn, a famous war heroine, and was so outspoken and driven that only something truly gigantic could happen to put her there, and  _that_ would undoubtedly end up in the papers.

So she had purposefully kept that link open. Both for Hannah and herself, if she was being honest. Hannah would need a link in the muggle world; she was a halfblood, yes, but she'd spent the last decade and change probably almost totally in the Wizarding World - and so very much had changed since then. Music, fashions, laptops, computers, music players, even those cellphone things that were becoming cheaper and more popular - and none of it had a direct equivalent in the Wizarding World. Certainly, there had been some innovation, but not on the same scale in the least.

Hannah would probably end up leaving the Wizarding World out of desperation and anger (okay, she might be projecting her emotions a bit much there, but she didn't think she'd completely misread her) and enter the muggle world with no way to survive. Magic would keep her going for a while, but she be so completely out of her depth that it wouldn't last.

Hermione was hopeful that by the time Hannah reached her breaking point that she would be sufficiently well-established and savvy to be able to help her 'cousin'.

_She might not be saving the whole world like she'd once dreamed, but she could still save a few individuals every now and again._

She'd resigned her position quietly. There hadn't been a big fuss made, which suited her plans just fine, and she'd managed to escape the Department on time and with her replacement as trained as possible. So there was something else off her list to do.

The next thing? Her flat.

* * *

It wasn't that she had a whole bunch of stuff . . . but more that the moment she left the flat for good she would have a whole bunch of concerned friends descending on her. She used the term 'friend' loosely in that sentence, since the majority of them would be busybodys desperate to pretend a connection to a famous person (even if she was quietly thought to be mad).

The Weasley clan and the Potter family wouldn't do that. They were -  _are_ \- her friends. And they were quietly isolating themselves.

After the war (and, oh, how many sentences started like that) things had been very busy, very flashy, and very loud. And none of them particularly wanted that. They were all in mourning - Fred, Remus, Tonks, and so very many others - and couldn't particularly be arsed to pretend otherwise for the papers.

Mostly, they respected their wishes and desire for privacy.

But as the years went on and they only decided - 'deigned', one paper had sneered - to go to a handful more social events per year, the unctuous sympathy and understanding support dried up.

Well. They weren't at the stage now that Hermione was, 'fuck them all' was fairly recognisable; but they were at the 'piss off and try again next month'.

Mrs Weasley was the most social of them, and that was more due to a desire to get back into old habits than any real need to reconnect with her neighbours. And she was doing an admirable job of righting herself from the deep gloom she'd been in after the battle, but it was clear to those near to her that there was still a way to go.

Most of her children had fled the British Isles - Charlie (scars all up his back) had gone back to Romania and taken Ginny (a missing leg had automatically blacklisted her from even attempting a Quidditch career; the rules were ironclad, regardless of her prosthetic meaning that she was happily accepted on the dragon reserve) with him, George (one ear gone and a scar barely missing taking his eye with it) was on an open-ended overseas trip and communicating purely by muggle mail (he seemed to get a kick out of it), Percy seemed to have vanished into the bowels of an Australian mine (specifically the magical bit, which required near-constant interaction with goblins and always ran the risk of evolving into out-and-out physical battle. He seemed both terrified and exhilarated by it, much to their collective amusement and barely-concealed shock), and Bill (a demi-werewolf) and Fleur (near terrified of water after . . . happenings) were permanently settled in France ("More sensible by far," Fleur sniffed, a comforting hand on Bill's shoulder belying her tone), and Fred had died (heroically, for all the difference that made). Ron alone remained, and he was not the same person he had been.

The war had . . . not settled him, but seemed to affirm something in him. He wasn't a jealous little boy any more, always greedy for the next thing and blazingly oblivious to all but the most blatant of events. Ron the man was quieter, more solid. He had been knocked unconscious for several days towards the end of the Battle, and when he woke up he had been in the thick of a hospital that was near to resorting to muggle methods from a lack of resources. Disorientated, partially sedated, and forced to just _lie_ _there_ and listen to the misery of so many of his comrades - it had changed him. He still had his sense of humour, certainly, but he was better able to gauge a situation before clomping in. He hadn't formed any long-term relationships since the battle, either. And he was not, despite what the papers crowed, pining after that harlot muggleborn. He was just . . . preferring being on his own, and hadn't met anyone yet who'd make him change his mind. That was hardly to say he was a celibate monk, but one night stands weren't the same as a committed relationship like the one Harry and Ginny were clearly in.

And they were definitely committed. The two were practically inseparable nowadays, with the comparative quiet of Romania giving them the opportunity to really work on their relationship with each other and their respective issues, and their planning of a quiet wedding had shocked absolutely no one who knew them. Oh, sure, once upon a time Ginny would have insisted on a big public wedding, press and people she barely liked pointedly included - but she wasn't a little girl dreaming of marrying the  unbeatable Harry Potter.

She had lived for months in a castle that was waging a not-so-quiet war against two unrepentant sadists. She had witnessed the carnage that had decimated her generation. She had seen the changes in her family - the scarring, the missing, the pain - and she had been injured herself.

Her leg was . . . gone. And it had fucked her up. Her future plans - marry Harry, play Quidditch professionally for as long as she could, have several kids - had been derailed. Quidditch was gone for good; the rules necessitated no prosthesis' - ostensibly for fairness in physical ability, tacitly to prevent creative cheats - and what man would want a crippled woman?

Fortunately, Harry liked Ginny enough to be prepared to fight for her, even against her own beliefs. And their relationship now was stronger by far than the one they'd initially had, which had mainly been based on attraction, respect, and an appreciation for the other's personality. Now, they  _knew_ each other: all the nasty little bits, those mind-numbingly dull things that they hated, their annoying little habits, how they looked first thing in the morning after pulling an all-nighter and on less than five hours of sleep, their favourite flavour of ice cream, and so much more.

It was beautiful and a little bit sad to watch, if she was really honest about it. Because Ginny and Harry had so intwined themselves - they were Ginny-and-Harry now, one entity rather than two people - she didn't think they'd ever be able to untangle themselves. Which was great, so long as things continued to work out for them and no one badly misstepped and wrecked it all.

She really was pessimistic nowadays, wasn't she?

But the point was - they understood. They were slowly backing away too, gradually decreasing the amount of interaction they had with people outside the family. And they knew she was tired of being stifled, tired of being looked down on, and she just wanted to be  _free_ and to  _live_ her life.

* * *

Really, that was all she ever wanted.

Knowledge and learning was wonderful, and something she loved - but she absolutely hated being told what she could and couldn't do.

She hadn't been like that when she was younger; authority was something she had trusted innately. Part of that was the respect that she had for older people, taught to her by her parents, and part of it was that they knew things she didn't and so likely understood why she couldn't do particular things and why she could.

That had changed over her Hogwarts years. Umbridge in particular had been the last straw. Maybe her disrespect would've been restricted to that woman, but when she heard how McGonagall had reacted to Harry - who she  _knew_ told the truth, who knew him from outside of school, and who knew that he didn't complain about anything (not even that horrid family of his) - well. That had shattered any illusions she might have had.

But she was stubborn, so she was able to keep pretending to herself for a couple more years that she still believed.

(She didn't.)

She relied on herself and her friends. Her family was in Australia, cheerfully oblivious and becoming more and more brown, and that was fine.

Really.

Completely and utterly fine.

Yes, she missed them, but they hadn't really lived together since she was ten years old. She was well past that now, and they were . . . happy. Which wasn't to say that they had been  _un_ happy when she was in their lives, but they had been more worried. They had known about a world that they couldn't really defend themselves against, that they couldn't take precautions for, and they had been yanked into it because of their daughter. And they loved her, she knew it, but it was . . . stressful.

And they didn't need that stress. So she purposefully avoided researching any possible way of reversing a memory charm, and Monica and Wendell Wilkins remained happily oblivious to the supernatural and soaked up rays with the gleeful abandon of people who had stopped caring about skin cancer.

And, yes, things could go wrong - but she was determined not to worry herself into an early grave, which was exactly what would happen if she started thinking about what-ifs. So her parents would get a Christmas card every year from their not-daughter who they knew as a former neighbour, and she would occasionally swing by and see how they were doing.

And she was fine with this. Completely, totally, _fine_.

* * *

'Going muggle' was both easier and harder than she thought it would be.

It was easy in that no-one really seemed to care that she had quietly vanished - she never heard about search parties and there wasn't even an item in the Prophet - and she was one of literal millions of people in London.

It was hard because her identification was about a decade out of date. And she hadn't done any educational exams since then. Which made things like, say, employment a tiny bit impossible

So she was incredibly fortunate that she had the house in Harrow. It gave her some security, and she was still remembered by the neighbours, so they didn't think she was squatting. And it had been incredibly hard to live there, knowing that everyone thought her parents were dead. Sometimes she forgot that they weren't, which made her a bit depressed and slightly, guiltily relieved. She didn't like to think about what that combination of emotions meant.

But she was adjusting. Technology had changed, yes - cellphones were getting more common, as were laptops, and paper bus cards were a thing of the past - but people hadn't. Which had undeniably helped her.

She was someone who had been submerged in a different culture, with practically no breaks, for literal years. She needed to relearn how muggles - no, how  _normal people_ \- interacted with each other and quickly, or she was not going to survive here.

Cafes and libraries were godsends. Cafes mainly for human interactions - and so long as she appeared to be engrossed in her book and her drink, no one even entertained the thought that she was eavesdropping. It was probably morally poor, but it was necessary, so she accepted it as such. She didn't like it, but she wasn't going to deny herself the advantage, or pretend that she was above such a thing. War rids you of that kind of thing pretty quick.

And libraries - ah, so many books! And easy access to a computer, which was nearly better than that (but not quite). The internet - that wondrous thing that gave her access to so much information it was just . . . incredible. 

So she was learning, and she was planning, and she was being careful.

* * *

Okay, she was being  _fairly_ careful. But exceptions have to be made - and magic was hers.

And it wasn't like she was taking stupid risks - a year being hunted and reliant solely on herself and the boys' wands had left its mark, even years later.

It helped that her readings over the years, both during-Hogwarts and post-Hogwarts, had tended to go more in-depth and detailed than most people bothered. And those little tidbits had led her to other references, more books, and further and further from the standard readings that everyone knew.

The results? Her garden shed was, on the inside, the size of a dance studio (sans mirrors). The outside walls had been repainted a cheerful sky blue, with the roof mint green. If any of the neighbours asked, she was going to tell them it was her workspace for when she was working on her writing. It was just believable enough that those who had known her when she was younger would believe it, and she could easily sell a lie that small if she had to. The inside held all her magical items, barring her wand. She knew that some people had, during the war, taken to keeping emergency supplies and money and pretty much everything on them. She, personally felt it was too much trouble to get it all set up - you'd have to double up on everything so that you could actually live your normal life, and that would get very expensive very fast. And with magic, if she really had to, she could transfigure or charm or conjure most things she needed and then sell it for money.

There were limits, yeah, but if she absolutely had to - say, she was being hunted down by people who had a surefire method of tracking her - she could do it. It would be morally wrong, and she would feel guilty about it later if- _when_ the danger had passed, but her self-preservation instinct overruled such things. And she would live, and survive, however she had to.

But she didn't have a future in the Wizarding World - not one she was willing to accept, in any case - so integration was necessary.

And that was that, as far as she was concerned.

* * *

Her studies were . . . progressing. They weren't doing so as fast as she would like it, but there was a limit to how quickly you could cram years worth of schooling into your head. And she refused to use magical methods to help her out - wit-sharpening potion, a time turner, occlumency and the like. She was going to have to go almost completely muggle in order to successfully integrate, and she wasn't going to cheat for this. 'Cause once you've done something once and gotten away with it, you are so much more likely to do it again, and again, and she would get caught and that would be more than bad, it would be potentially fatal.

Plus, it was lazy.

Which was something she hadn't realised she had become.

Magic was wonderful . . . and they used it for absolutely everything. Which made sense, some of the time, but the rest of it? No.

So she didn't think about occlumency for more than a couple of seconds - she'd never had the knack for it, really - and she resolutely didn't lament giving back the time turner after her third year.

Because all of the wondrous things that magic could do? They had a cost.

Which . . . she hadn't thought about in far too long. The fact that everything has a cost, obvious or otherwise. Magic mainly hid the costs needed, but the effects could be noted over time. All that apparition - more unfit in the long run. Able to transform an enemy into whatever you wanted - more cavalier about personal safety, and less likely to be able to physically defend yourself. Potions for any and everything (if you had the resources) - dependence that could become a necessity or maybe an addiction (felix felicis sprang to mind).

Doing the easy route all the time made you lazy, made you complacent, made things stagnant. Why improve something when it's already easy, after all?

Muggles didn't have that. Candlelight was fine, but it was improved - with electricity. The horse was fine, but it was improved - by the car. Sure, they weren't perfect replacements, but they were improvements and people were _still working_ on them to get them even better.

The Wizarding World most assuredly wasn't.

Hermione wasn't part of that anymore, and she was determined not to repeat their mistakes. But she was aware that caution would most definitely be needed - both to ensure she didn't blow herself up (perhaps she should ask Seamus for some tips on what not to do?) and so that she didn't blow the secrecy thing.

* * *

Normal people were exhausting. And they were normal, she knew that. The definition of normal, roughly, was what was usual, typical, or expected. By sheer dint of numbers, the muggle world had to be normal. Which wasn't to say that normal was the be-all and end-all of everything, but on the scale of things, she had to be closer to 'muggle' than 'wizard' if she wanted to remain not locked up in a mental health institution.

And those still existed, but had improved since Bedlam, and were now more about restoring reasonable cognition and ensuring that the person wasn't a risk, either to themself or others. Which was good, and fine - but she didn't want to experience it.

So blending it was.

Television was helpful; it meant that she knew what a few references were about. The internet was a godsend, YouTube in particular. And she didn't have to know exactly what she wanted, what with it's algorithms and predictive responses meaning that she only had to put in a couple of letters, and options would show up telling her everything she wanted to know, and a fair few things that she didn't.

The best bit was she didn't even have to know it all completely urgently; she told the truth. A censored version of it, at least; she had been at an isolated boarding school for years, and had then submerged herself in research for an obscure subject - the potential for intellectual transcendence beyond the fettered means of verbalisation and body language - and hadn't kept up with a lot of modern culture.

That tended to get her either blank stares or concerned looks, depending on whether they could translate the purposefully obscure wording and if they were avid sci-fi fans. She got more of the former of the latter (and they tended to swiftly change the topic to something they understood), and when she got the latter she would then get into a debate with them about intellectual property, AIs, rights, and potential post-apocalyptic scenarios if they were particularly enthusiastic.

She enjoyed it. Debates had tended to be more life-and-death and emotional in the past (should we attack  _this_ point or not, why can't you talk to us, don't you trust me) and less about logic, wit, and the ability to think on your feet.

It was  _glorious_ , and was a brilliant way to get herself invited out for a couple of coffees. Most of them didn't, yes, but she had more contacts in the normal community now than she previously had, and she was not going to screw that up. Establishing herself thoroughly would take awhile, and the more missteps she made the longer it would take. Thankfully, she was fairly used to dealing with clashing personalities (herself, Ron, and Harry had always been a bit of a personality battle royale when they were younger) and knew more than a few tricks for both talking people around and ensuring that they didn't part enemies.

It was progress, which was all she was aiming for at this stage.

* * *

Her list was simple:

1\. Acclimatise to ~~muggle~~ normal culture.

2\. Get at least her GCSEs, preferably including her A-levels, within the next 5 years. (She'd like to do it sooner, but she was going to have a lot on her plate no matter what, and so long as she gets there she isn't  _too_ fussed.)

3\. Get a job.

4\. ???

...

She wasn't sure after that.

* * *

It was wonderful.

It was terrifying.

It was freedom.

 

It was life. And she did not regret it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I try my best not to bash characters, so do let me know if you think I have - with the key exception being the fanon Wizarding World, because that is both slightly too true and very very easy.  
> Also, I have never really agreed with the practically zero death toll from the Battle of Hogwarts; certainly there may have been a numbers bias towards Harry' side, but the bulk of their fighters would have been either unblooded, untested, unprepared, or naive and optimistic, and the number of them used to cooperating with that number of fighters would have been vanishingly small. There would have been a lot more dead than Rowling kiddy-proofed for us, so my fic is going to reflect that. Added to the muggle tech advances . . . ? Well, there are going to be happenings, let me tell you.
> 
> Also, if anyone has suggestions for potential crossovers, comment away; I've left it fairly open, and like to think I'd be able to integrate a lot of other fandoms into here. I'm pretty much flying blind at this stage, so a bit of direction would not go amiss :)


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